This afternoon, President Joe Biden outlined additional steps being taken by his administration to curb the rise of the Delta variant across country, specifically by increasing the number of vaccinated Americans.
Among several announcements, the President stated that the Department of Labor is working on an emergency rule that will require businesses that employee 100+ individuals to mandate vaccinations or require any unvaccinated workers to show a negative test on at least a weekly basis—affecting over 80 million Americans.
Further explanation posted to whitehouse.gov outlines that the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will issue an ‘Emergency Temporary Standard’ to implement this requirement.
Among other Republican leaders, Governor Tate Reeves has expressed his disdain for the new policy, calling it unconstitutional.
“The President has no authority to require that Americans inject themselves because of their employment at a private business. The vaccine itself is life-saving, but this unconstitutional move is terrifying. This is still America, and we still believe in freedom from tyrants,” the governor tweeted.
The White House plan will also require vaccinations for all federal employees and contractors that that do business with the federal government—around 2.5 million people.
While not mandated, the President called on states to issue vaccine mandates for teachers.
